Saturday, February 28, 2009

Separation Anxiety

One of the realities of life with large animals is weaning. In the wild, the mothers would wean on their own about 5 months into their pregnancy with their next baby. Since my horses are not with a stallion and will not become pregnant again for awhile, the weaning process will have to be brought about by me. Big, bad me.

Truthfully I should have done this when Vivid was 6 months old (some people do it at 3 months) but I was out of state at that time. She is 8 months now so I expected this to be a painful process for her.

I consulted the almanac to see when it suggested was the best time for weaning in February. The 28th and 29th. No 29 this year so I knew it would have to be the 28th. I hired the neighbor boy to clean out my nursery/hospital stall in preparation for the big day.

Everything was ready. The 28th (today) dawned rainy and cold with a winter weather advisory in the forecast. Lovely. I moved LD into the stall and hoped the baby and her aunt would go to the other barn to get out of the rain.

Vivid was a tad upset at first but seemed to adjust fairly quickly. She was all for hanging out in the dry barn munching on hay but Auntie Daydream was not going to let that happen.

She did not do so well with the separation. She paced to and fro and screamed for her sister. Then she stationed herself directly behind the stall where LD is.

Which is where Daydream and Vivid still are. Standing in the rain watching LD munch hay in her nice dry stall.